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Boris Krutonog (be careful of maiden names and BD to prevent Identity theft. Also don’t show your age and exact cities for same reason) Boris Krutonog [Russian: Boris L’vovich Krutonog] is a Moldova {former USSR) born actor, producer and entrepreneur. Known for major supporting roles on American film and television The Hunt For Red October, Star Trek VI, The Italian Job, The Americans (TV series) and others Krutonog also co-created and Executive Produced Dog The Bounty Hunter, a flagship hit reality series on A&E Networks. Krutonog is also President and CEO of AmWest Ambulance, an emergency ambulance company in Los Angeles.

Early Life

Boris was born in Chisinau, Moldovan SSR, where he played Team Handball for his middle school (No. 40) and came in 2 nd in the city’s Math Olympics. His parents, Lev (Leib) Krutonog and Ada Krutonog come from a long lineage of Cohanim and Levi’s in the Rabbinical tradition, and the family emigrated to Israel (Rehovot) in 1976. To help get ends meet, Krutonog worked in the Schweppes factory and the challah factory (with his dad) 2 nights a week while going to high school and training. In 1978 Krutonog led his Katzir high school to winning the Israeli National Team Handball championship and came in 3 rd in the European high school championship in Teramo, Italy. Inspired at 12 by Theodore Dreiser’s classic The Financier, Krutonog’s dreamed of moving to America and running a business. And so at 18, armed with 400 dollars, Krutonog arrived in NYC looking for opportunities. Yeshiva University came first followed by Columbia University where he earned an Industrial Engineering degree. Then an acting class he took on a dare, took him on an unexpected 25 year detour of self-exploration and creative expression.

CAREER

After a 2-year stint at the McDonnell Douglas aerospace company, Krutonog took up acting full time, and was accepted to The American Academy of Dramatic Arts. A year later, together with a friend and a budding playwright Stephen Romagnoli, Krutonog launched a theater company in NY’s East Village, where Romagnoli would write and direct the plays, and Krutonog would produce and star in them. One of their collaborations “STEALING HEAVEN“ had a successful 9 months run at the Off-Broadway’s Samuel Beckett theater.

And then Krutonog was “discovered”. At a party in NYC. Where a stranger approached and said he needed a Russian guy for a scene in an action movie he and his friends were shooting in upstate New York that weekend. Krutonog traveled three hours to shoot that one scene, in which, incidentally, he only had one line! Apparently, it worked out, since he was invited to star in the next three low budget action movies shot over the next few weekends. It became a production boot camp for Krutonog – he acted, operated the camera, built sets, and wrote hisown dialogue! A few months later an agent showed that footage to director John McTiernan, who immediately cast him in ‘The Hunt For Red October.’ That was followed by “Air America” (with Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Jr), “Love Affair (with Warren Beaty)” ,”Star Trek VI”, “Monolith”, “Air Force One”, “The Italian Job”, “Devil’s Fruit” and many others. Krutonog is one of only four actors (along with James Cromwell) to initially play a character in a "Star Trek" film before reprising their role in a "Star Trek" television series. He played Lt. Commander Lojur in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and later reprised this role in “Star Trek: Voyager: Flashback.”

In 1995 Krutonog read a paragraph about Dog The Bounty Hunter in Anthony Robbins’ book “Awaken The Giant Within.” Intrigued, he called Dog and secured his life rights. 10 years of endless rejections later, the show launched in 2004 on A&E as the highest rated reality cable show in history. Krutonog served as Executive Producer on the series for 8 years and was best man at Dog and Beth Chapman’s wedding.

In 2000 Krutonog launched Cosmonaut Training Camp in Star City, Russia. Like most Russian kids, Krutonog dreamed of becoming a cosmonaut, and he partly fulfilled that dream by commercializing what has forever been a secret military institution where Russian cosmonauts trained for secret space missions. With a partner, Krutonog developed a tourism company that oversaw groups of American space enthusiasts train alongside cosmonauts. They performed zero-gravity endurance flights, underwater weightlessness simulation exercises, endured giant centrifuge G-forces, etc… The camp is still currently active.

In June 2003, in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico Krutonog filmed the capture of bail jumper and wanted serial rapist Andrew Luster by Dog The Bounty Hunter and his crew. Krutonog, the bounty hunters and Luster were all arrested and spent 6 horrific days in Mexican jails. Luster was subsequently returned to the US to serve a 124-year prison term.

In July of 2010 Krutonog’s dream came full circle when an acquaintance approached him (at Trader Joe’s) and asked for help with his healthcare company. Sensing a demand, 12 months later Boris purchased his first (used) ambulance and launched AmWest Ambulance operations in Los Angeles.

In December of 2020 AmWest became one of only 3 ambulance companies in Southern California licensed to provide vaccinations against the Covid-19 virus. Krutonog continues to serve as President and CEO of AmWest Ambulance, which has offices in Los Angeles, Stanislaus, Sacramento and Orange Counties.

In 2015 Boris was cast in the TV series The Americans. He was hired for just one episode, but the show’s creators Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields so loved Boris’s performance, that they made him a regularly recurring character for the last four seasons. The Americans went on to win multiple Emmys, Golden Globes, and the National Critics Associations’ Best Show Of The Year awards.

PERSONAL LIFE KRUTONOG was married to Maureen Kedes 1999 – 2012 with whom he shares two sons – Sam and Nolan Krutonog. He was previously married to Gitl Schaechter. Krutonog is fluent in Russian, English, Hebrew and has working knowledge of Rumanian. Film and Television Highlights